The present invention relates to information systems and methods, and more particularly to data fusion systems.
Many applications benefit from the contemporaneous assimilation of large amounts of data. In medical, military, and commercial applications, operators engage in procedures and make decisions based on data describing various subjects represented by, for example, images, recorded sound, and text. Current technology has limitations presenting personnel with a unified view of this subject data to allow them to use all available data to make informed decisions.
For example, a physician providing medical treatment reviews image data acquired in multiple modalities, such as magnetic resonance (xe2x80x9cMRxe2x80x9d), computed tomographic (xe2x80x9cCTxe2x80x9d), and X-ray images, medical journals describing procedures, video images, such as ultrasound, and atlases describing anatomical structures. A physician therefore consults several sources to review the data necessary to provide patient treatment. These sources may include multiple computer display terminals located in different parts of a hospital, hard copies of medical images printed on film archived among thousands of images in a hospital film library or remote storage site, and volumes of journals located in the stacks of a hospital library. Also, the sources of data consulted by treating physicians may include medical atlases containing thousands of MR and CT scans of a cadaver corresponding to photographic images of cross-sectional slices taken of various anatomical structures.
Usually data from these atlases and other sources are not correlated with each other. A cadaver image in an atlas does not usually have the same geometry as a patient receiving treatment, so a physician must mentally fuse the available data which requires correlating the data retrieved from the various sources to develop a treatment plan or to provide information during medical procedures. The difficulties of fusing available data increase if the physician must assimilate the various data types while rendering treatment.
The World Wide Web (xe2x80x9cWWWxe2x80x9d) has recently made vast amounts of data stored on local and remote computers easily accessible through a graphical computer interface. The WWW is a network of computers, connected by the Internet, sharing a common file structure and mark-up language for creating files. The two most prevalent languages used to create multimedia WWW files are the hypertext mark-up language (xe2x80x9cHTMLxe2x80x9d) and the virtual reality mark-up language (xe2x80x9cVRMLxe2x80x9d). HTML is best suited for creating files with text and two-dimensional image data, whereas VRML is designed for creating files containing images of three-dimensional objects. Both languages provide an easy way to combine image, text, and sound data in files accessible by xe2x80x9cpoint-and-click,xe2x80x9d computer mouse driven user interfaces called xe2x80x9cbrowsers.xe2x80x9d
A xe2x80x9cbrowserxe2x80x9d is a computer program that provides users access to files stored on the WWW. The browser displays files on a computer screen and can run programs, known as xe2x80x9capplets,xe2x80x9d indicating links to data in other files on the WWW by, for example, underlining text or highlighting areas of an image. By selecting the underlined text or a highlighted image, the browser retrieves the linked data, allowing a user to view data stored on computers in the WWW without needing to know where the information is physically stored. Files can be joined using these xe2x80x9chyperlinks,xe2x80x9d which give the name of the file along with an address for a computer storing the file. For example, the text or an image in a file stored on a computer in Switzerland can contain an embedded link to data stored on a computer in the United States. The WWW browser automatically recognizes the linked file data type, so the linked file can be an image, an audio clip, a video, or even an executable computer program. For example, if the linked data is an audio clip, the browser will load a program that takes the audio clip and plays it through the speakers of the user""s computer. A browser usually runs on a computer referred to as a xe2x80x9cclient,xe2x80x9d while a computer known as a xe2x80x9cserverxe2x80x9d hosts and produces WWW files requested by a client.
In particular, the WWW serves as a useful tool for navigating through two- and three-dimensional image data. For example, an image can be displayed by the browser, and different parts of the image can be linked to different files. But, for the most part, this WWW capability is primarily used for providing simple menus of uncorrelated data available on WWW computers. For example, a WWW computer will show an image of people, cars, and boats. By clicking on the image of people, a user can go to on-line chat sessions with people, or by clicking on a boat image, a user gets information about boats.
The current technology is limited because there does not exist an information system that exploits the data navigation capabilities of the WWW to correlate data retrieved from diverse sources and then assimilate the data into a useful form. For example, the tools available for information gathering in the WWW environment include database search engines and expert systems that assist a user in describing the information sought. However, these tools only retrieve files corresponding to a particular term or pertaining to certain designated subject matter. The retrieved files are not correlated with one another.
There is, therefore, a need for an information system that harnesses the power of the technology associated with the WWW and other similar image-based information retrieval systems to produce assimilated composite data in a form that operators can readily use.
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for producing and accessing composite data containing co-registered and subject data. Co-registered data is generated, for example, by registering data to a common coordinate system. The method for automatically producing composite data includes several steps, performed by a server computer. The steps include: creating a mapping relationship between the co-registered data and the subject data by mapping or deforming a template to fit the subject data; filtering the co-registered data; and producing composite data by mapping the filtered co-registered data to the subject data according to the mapping relationship.
A method consistent with this invention is also directed to steps, performed in a client computer, including: requesting composite data from a server computer; transmitting the subject data to the server computer; receiving the requested composite data from the server computer; presenting the received composite data to an operator; and monitoring the operator""s use of composite data.
An apparatus consistent with this invention for automatically producing composite data containing co-registered data and subject data includes: structure for creating a mapping relationship between the co-registered data and the subject data by mapping or deforming a template to fit the subject data; structure for filtering the co-registered data; and structure for producing composite data by mapping the filtered co-registered data to the subject data according to the mapping relationship.
Another apparatus consistent with the present invention automatically presents an operator with composite data containing co-registered data and subject data. Such an apparatus includes: structure for requesting composite data from a server computer; structure for transmitting the subject data to the server computer; structure for receiving the requested composite data from the server computer; structure for presenting the received composite data to an operator; and structure for monitoring the operator""s use of the received composite data.
Both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.